Linus On The Future Of Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "There's a pretty good interview with Linus over at Good Morning Silicon Valley. The discussion seems focused predominantly on the future of proprietary software and what the tech landscape might look like if Microsoft's market share declines. 'Says Linus: I do not believe that anything can "replace" Microsoft in the market that MS is right now. Instead, what I think happens is that markets mature, and as they mature and become commoditized, the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more. You don't have another dominant player coming in and taking its place -- to find a new dominant player you actually have to start looking at a totally different market altogether.'"

Comments

Future of Microsoft?

[Richard_at_work]

Easy - take a long hard look at IBM.

Re:Future of Microsoft?

[node 3]

Easy - take a long hard look at IBM.

Exactly. When IBM's consumer software market dried up, they simply moved more focus onto their hardware.

MS will do the same, and when their consumer software market dries up, they'll focus on selling mice and keyboards for Linux and Mac PCs.

Re:Future of Microsoft?

[jbolden]

Yeah the MS / IBM comparison is lazy, there has never been a company as successful as MS.

Sure there have been companies with this level of dominance. Standard oil, American Sugar trust, US steel, US fruit, General Motors, the new york stock exchange,

Re:Future of Microsoft?

[EastCoastSurfer]

Instead of blaming the grandparent poster for not knowing that OO isn't meant to Visio type drawings, wouldn't it have made more sense to point them in the direction of a tool for linux that can do Visio type drawings? Have you ever thought that most users don't care what the tool is supposed to do (and don't want to be reminded about it either), they just want it to work for their needs.

1998 called

[The Bungi]

He wants his story back.

Re:1998 called

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, 1996 is on hold for you on line 2.

Something about a joke.

If only Linus...

[WRoach]

Was born 15 years earlier...

Re:If only Linus...

[mattyrobinson69]

i dunno, in 1977 there weren't as many programmers as there were in 1992.

if linus was born 17 years earlier, i dont think we would have linux as good as it is now.

Disagree, it's about innovation, not size.

[seanmcelroy]

I'm not so sure about that. Think about foreign automobile makers and GM in today's world. GM is arguably a behemoth, and that in itself can be what drives a monopoly out of power. Even though this market is arguably very mature, market share can change fairly rapidly with innovation. Once you conquer enough of the market share, you will have a hard time keeping up with innovation in all the corners that could propel your rival to be serious competition someday.

The trouble with this analysis...

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

...is that what happened in the past does not necessarily mean the same thing will happen in the future. Microsoft has so many built-in defense mechanisms and ways of controlling and monopolizing the market that there's no real end in sight for their domination of it.

Therefore, while I would like to believe that what Linus says is true, I sincerely doubt it will happen, at least not in the forseeable future.

Re:The trouble with this analysis...

[Pentavirate]

I'm having a bit of trouble with this analysis myself. Linus is talking as if it's all a foregone conclusion and we're just waiting for it to come to pass. He sites IBM as a big example of what will happen with Microsoft but it seems to me he's comparing apples and oranges.

IBM produce hardware that ran software. Other companies produced a clone of that hardware to be able to run the same software. Software being the key to what people wanted. They could care less who made the machine as long as they could buy the software they want.

Microsoft is a software company and specifically an OS company. There's no such thing as an OS clone. Sure there's emulators, but that's not the same thing. In the end people just want to run what software they want to and Microsoft is positioned to allow that to happen and I don't see an easy way for someone else to come in and take that away from them. Sure you can develop this office suite that does mostly the same things or that browser but unless you get the OS, it's only chinks in the armor.

The other problem is his view of the role of open source. He seems to think that OSS is going to take over much of the development and companies are going to handle support (at least that's the impression I got). Now, I'm not saying this won't happen, but never before have we had this kind of situation where masses of people are putting out a free commodity to replace a proprietary commodity. Linus has no history to back him up. It's truly extraordinary to think about it. What would happen if proprietary software went away in favor of OSS? What would all of these developers do to pay their bills while they're developing their pet OSS projects? I'm just wondering out loud whether OSS is capable of scaling to the size of the proprietary software industry without the that industry supporting its developers.

To make a short comment way too long, just take his "analysis" with a grain of salt.

Re:The trouble with this analysis...

[HardCase]

Microsoft enjoys the Wal-Mart effect. People love to hate them and say "not here!" but they still go out and shop at Wal-Mart.

That's because most people don't hate Wal-Mart. Most people don't hate Microsoft, either. The people who hate the two companies are well out on the fringe. Almost everybody else is ambivalent.

-h-

Interview with Linus !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG .. Im gonna faint !!! Hail our Kernel-writing overlord !!

Another MS occurring?

[Torgo's Pizza]

the kind of dominant player like MS just doesn't happen any more.

Tell that to Google.

Re:Another MS occurring?

[inerte]

You can easily switch between web search engines while the same is not true for operating systems. Google is on a much weaker lead spot than MS.

Re:Another MS occurring?

[rpdillon]

He didn't say the market hadn't been good to them, he said the market wasn't mature. And it isn't. The market for toasters is mature. And maybe cars. But not desktop operating systems or search engines.

Why Isn't There A Microsoft Section?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, with all the stories slashdot devotes to Microsoft thru the years, it's amazing they never get their own section. There are probably more MS related stories and Linux stories on a daily basis.

Slashdot should put these stories in a dedicated section like they do with Linux, and Apple.

Oh, and they should get rid of the Gates borg icon. It was never funny, and it just looks so lame and childish. How come no other topic beside Microsoft gets that kind of immature treatment?

Re:Why Isn't There A Microsoft Section?

[mpontes]

I really wanted to make a "You must be new here" reply for the first time. However, before you mod me Troll, please think of what my [emacs] psychologist said to me this morning: that I'm only doing this because I have a high user-id and that intimidates me, so I am desperatly trying to fit in the /. crowd by acting like your average /bot.

Or, if you prefer the Freudian approach: penis.

How come no other topic beside Microsoft gets that kind of immature treatment?

You must be new here.

Re:Why Isn't There A Microsoft Section?

[MmmmAqua]

Oh, and they should get rid of the Gates borg icon. It was never funny, and it just looks so lame and childish. How come no other topic beside Microsoft gets that kind of immature treatment?

You must be new here.

Linus is so modest and reasonable...

[soupdevil]

How does he remain a hero of fanboys and flamebaiters?

Its all about The Bottom Line

[HaFBaKeD]

As long as Microsoft has the money to throw at new projects, it will be a VERY long time before it looses any significant market share. All the new and inovative technologies coming out to compete with Microsoft, are either later copied by them, or bought out by them. And when 95+% already uses MS and doesn't care about alternatives, they'll stick with them when it comes to new technologies.

People learn...

[Ochu]

Linus is basing what he thinks will happen on his experience of past monopolies. How many of these have there been? Really? Maybe 10, 20? Nowhere near enough to start predicting the future on. We have had four and a half billion years of weather, and we still can't get that right, and god knows, big business is nearly as complex. The other problem, of course, is microsoft is learning every day how to protect itself from those other companies fates.

OS Competition Is Useless

[Jediman1138]

Here's the way I see it.

I understand completely why consumers, especially us, want there to be OS choice and
OS competition for everyone. Having three or four major OS's that end user every-day
Joes would use sounds like a Utopia. In fact, if I had it my way, there would be Windows,
Mac OS X, a revolutionary easy to use, yet powerful, Linux (shh.), and another free OS.

However, since most consumers don't know very much about computers, they're not going to
understand that their software doesn't work between OS's without hard-to-use (for them)
emulation software. With all of those choices, people are going to stick with the name
and software package they trust. Windows is going to win no matter what, unless Microsoft
goes the way of the dodo. The vast majority cannot handle the confusion and differences
between OS's, and they don't want to understand it. Even if somehow all the OS's could
use each other's software natively, then what would be the point in having more than one?

I hate to see one operating system dominate the market just as much as you guys do, but
there will always only be one primary operating system for (at least) the consumer market.
Whether it's always going to be Windows, I cannot say. I just know that people are happy
with standards, and they don't want to have to screw with migrating to something new, even
if they know it could be better for them.

Re:OS Competition Is Useless

[Stanistani]

>unless Microsoft goes the way of the dodo...

Actually, I see Microsoft going the way of the Passenger Pigeon

Re:OS Competition Is Useless

[lafiel]

Here's the way I see it:

Despite most consumers not knowing very much about cars either, there's plenty of competition within the market there. A car is an extremely complicated beast, but you don't have to learn how to drive just a Ford, or just a Toyota. The interface becomes standard, things might be in a slightly different place, but there's not much difficulty necessary to adjust from one to another. Under the hood, the car is vastly different within the same brand, much less between different competitors. And yet this highly complicated machine somehow has plenty of competition and it can be hardly said that one maker 'dominates' the market.

And yes, this analogy is flawed, but the premise that I am pointing out is the key. That you can hide all the gritty nitty surface details and present the consumer with exactly enough to do what they want. Typical competition will lead people from one OS to another, whether it be brand names, the placement of your start button, or the power underneath the hood.

Just as I don't see the streets dominated by mass-produced Fords, there doesn't always have to be one primary operating system. Things will mature.

Re:OS Competition Is Useless

[mvdw]

That's a well thought-out decision, however you're kidding yourself if you think that "momentum has nothing to do with it". Momentum has everything to do with it: that is precisely why win2k beats Linux for your roll-out. Linux being too expensive is just another way of saying "we don't have the skill set in-house to implement this", which is a perfectly understandable and valid business decision.

Two words: AOL and Linux

[suitepotato]

Consider that the average user is willfully clueless with their machines and software. Consider just how much. Now imagine AOL throwing their resources at a tight, polished, bootable AOL-ified Linux which they push on all those CDs.

Linux will continue to move places in the techie arena like with workstations and servers. End users who can't grok Windows? No, not until it gets polished.

So from that perspective, Linus is right that Microsoft isn't just going away. Are they going to continue to have share eaten in serverspace? Yes. Not going away though.

Overall very good replies by Linus, one billionth the level of intensity of the zealots who squak the most in the Linux world which is reassuring. I do think he's wrong that there won't be future Microsofts. There's plenty of innovations in tech to be made that one really lucky company may corner the market through sheer chance and idiocy of their competitors. Microsoft won where Apple, IBM, SCO, Oracle, Netscape, and Sun failed to take them down in various areas despite throwing massive energy into it. It could happen again.

Linus *On* the future of Microsoft

[soupdevil]

You misspelled *Is*.

Re:"Like open source"?

[node 3]

Define "like open source". Do you think IBM or Sun "likes" about open source?

"Like", when applied to a corporation, is a metaphor. Define it with that in mind.

They embrace open source because it helps them.

They're doing it for marketing

Not really. Yes, they take advantage of the marketing opportunities Open Source provides, but it's more than that. IBM has only so much capital to invest in future business. By embracing Open Source, they add to their offerings with minimal cost, so they can offer their customers just as much as before, plus what Open Source has to offer.

Seems to have Linus fooled.

Yeah, right.

Also, lest we forget Microsoft has open source'd code too.

One thing, an installer. Maybe they're up to two now, I'm not sure. IBM's support of Open Source compared to MS's is like comparing a Saturn V with an amateur model rocket.

Actually, it's much worse than that for MS. Bill Gates calling Open Source advocates "Communists" more than negates the miniscule props they get for their one Open Source project. Add to that MS's demands that government not be able to use Open Source software (WTF?!)...

In other words, MS is in absolutely no way a friend of Open Source software, and in *no way* is a friend of anyone who believes in Open Source/Free Software.

I like what he says but...

[erroneus]

...People look to Microsoft for brand name recognition and "trust." (I hear you laughing, but think like a consumer, not like a tech person.)

People still don't know "Linux" even if they have seen the IBM ads. So there's not a lot of established consumer trust. That will have to come from company trust really... and let's be honest, we're still quite a way from that at the moment. (I don't deny the progress but I can't ignore the distance to the destination either.)

When people realize that the OS and the Software as the means of operating on data instead of as "the thing" then we'll start to see an appreciation that software can be a commodity especially when they see that by divorcing Microsoft, their business data becomes free to be used by ANY software and not just Microsoft's. We've got a long way to go before that happens.

Still, I like the language Torvalds is speaking on this matter...

Re:"Like open source"?

[node 3]

True, but you're missing the point:

I wasn't addressing MS's "point" at all. I was comparing MS with IBM re: Open Source, in the context of the post I was replying to.

They point had the same goal of marketing.

No, they have different goals (IBM vs MS) wrt Open Source. IBM actually embraces it as a model, MS does not.

Here are three reasons MS open sourced that one program:

1. They can say, "we have open source projects" (when their customers ask), even though it doesn't mean what it implies.
2. They can continue with, "we haven't found open source all that useful a model, really".
3. The installer will be used and improved.

Microsoft's one thing probably got more press and thus was more successful.

I'm absolutely certain that if you were to take a poll, more people would associate IBM with Open Source than MS, hands down.

Is FireFox more a wedge to open source vs MSFT?

[WillAffleckUW]

It seems everyone I've talked to in the last 6 months is using FireFox. Plus everyone I tell FireFox about thanks me later. Everyone loves the tab feature and the "natural" defense against spyware. Anyhow... sure it's just a browser.

Now, if I were Bill Gates, and there's no truth to that rumor, I'd be much more concerned with the open-source browser adoption and implementation.

Why? Because if people aren't using IE - tightly bound into my OS or so I would claim - then they might realize they don't need my OS. And that would be double plus ungood.

So, in a way, projects like FireFox could make it easier to switch from my OS (Windows Daddy Longlegs) to an open source OS (insert name here).

Re:"Like open source"?

[16K Ram Pack]

It's actually more than just marketing.

IBM are in the software and hardware business, but more importantly, they are in the service business. They make nothing when they stick Windows on 1000 desktops. In fact, it costs them money. They also don't have the sort of control that they had on their mainframe operations.

By using OSS, they save money and can do much more with the software to meet their clients needs.

Linus is very wise here...

[dantheman82]

I for one am sick of the usual /. flaming against MS that smacks of jealousy and extreme idealism for "their pet OS". The point of Linus makes a lot of sense, and I think that yes the market will correct some of the rather hefty prices, as he says. Of course, the question is for the next 5-10 years, "What OS can my company bank on in the meantime?" I'd say MS is a pretty safe bet if (a)you have a lot of infrastructure that works well (Win2K/Win2K3/whatever) for the intranet where you have the knowledge and experience (and also support for the near future) and (b)you diversify with some *NIX (or even Windows Server) offering for the webserver where you have enough knowledge and experience to support it sufficiently yourself rather than rely on some company (RH) or other (pick your company).

Basically, those who bet against MS have the burden of proof on their specific OS over the MS offerings that have worked for a lot of people...and their view may be right for their situation.

The trouble with slashdot tribbles...

[MegaFur]

Therefore, while I would like to believe that what Linus says is true, I sincerely doubt it will happen, at least not in the forseeable future.

Please RTFA. Linus doesn't believe the MS empire will be crushed any year soon either. The closest he comes to saying that is

I just don't believe in dynasties. Things erode over time. Successes start to take themselves for granted, and the successful companies aren't nimble and hungry enough any more.

. . . So the question is how the decline happens, and in what timeframe. Will open source be a factor? Almost certainly. Will it be the factor? I don't know.

That part comes at the end. Probably because the interviewer wanted to finish on a strong note. Earlier in the interview however, Linus said

And yes, I think the big difference 10 years from now is not that MS is gone or even necessarily does anything very different, but that they have profit margins in line with the rest of the industry.

and, continuing backwards

That said, I don't see the MS market going away very fast, and I don't see why MS couldn't continue to function as a software company even if they don't control the commodity market any more. In many ways I think MS is in the same situation that IBM was in two decades ago, losing control of the basic market -- and thus the dominance of the market -- but not necessarily going away or even necessarily shrinking.

In general, I'm rather annoyed with the way people have been responding to the article because it seems like they're not reading it, or if they are, they're only looking at it from out of the corners of their eyes. Linus has always seemed to me to be a very level headed, easy going, and above all realistic individual when it comes to discussing the future of MS, Linux, and IT in general. It should come as no surprise then that he's not really predicting the sudden and apocalyptic death of MS, but rather a very slow, very gradual, possible(!) marginalization of the company.

You can leave the "imminent death of X"-style predicting to lesser people.

Oh wait! This is slashdot! Oops, I'm sorry my bad... I forgot where I was posting for a while. Please. Forget everything I said. Thanks.

Hmmm ... This Was a Joke or A Troll Right?

[SteveM]

OSX? ... "upgrades" are too frequent and expensive.

So then don't upgrade. You haven't from W2K. Is W2K even supported by MS anymore? (I'm ignoring the expensive myth, as it has been beaten to death. If you want cheap go ahead and buy cheap.)

Linux? - Too expensive to implement.

W2K - Cheap to buy. Cheap to implement. Works well.

Curious, Linux is cheaper to buy (can't get much better than free). And Linux certainly works well (although in fairness we don't know what you business is). And Linux is as cheap to implement as W2K, unless of course you were already a Windows shop when you started the analysis. Then this was a momentum thing.

OS/2! Why didn't you mention VMX or System 360?

So I call bullshit.

SteveM

Re:"Like open source"?

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> I've always wondered why Microsoft doesn't open source their no longer supported software.

Multiple reasons:

code reuse If they opened the source to previous operating systems and unsupported software, it would expose code used in current products. You don't think they write each iteration from scratch do you?

forced upgrade cycle If the source for NT 4.0 had been opened why in hell would I have ever upgraded to XP pro? I'd just patch it for Direct X and USB support and that's all she wrote. opening source would get us all off the forced upgrade cycle and that won't happen.

ideological I don't think the corporate mindset really embraces the cooperative concept of OSS (see the previous "Commie" comments attributed to WM. Gates in this topic)

Troll

[Frankie70]

If Linus had actually posted on Slashdot "I do not believe that anything can replace Microsoft in the market that MS is right now.", then he would have probably been modded as a troll by the proLinux crowd on Slashdot.